
Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/1164910.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Naruto
  Relationship:
      Uchiha_Sasuke/Uzumaki_Naruto
  Character:
      Uchiha_Sasuke, Uzumaki_Naruto
  Additional Tags:
      Suicide_Attempt, Self_Harm, self_mutilation, Molestation
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-02-02 Words: 4515
****** What Doesn't Kill You (Makes You Stronger) ******
by xrosepetalsx
Summary
     When Sasuke finally starts remembering what happened to him as a
     child, he turns to self-harm to lighten the burden. His best friend
     Naruto comes along to save him. Includes heavy themes such as abuse,
     molestation (incest), self-harm, and a suicide attempt.
Notes
     Written for Kumiko Saitou who asked for another, more serious cutting
     fic. Be warned that this fic does include a lot of abusive and
     incestuous themes as well as self harm and a suicide attempt. The
     main character of this fic was molested by his brother, so if this is
     not something you would like to read, please leave now, because this
     features heavily. For clarification – part i. is meant to be written
     as if the character is living in a haze. Part ii. and on is meant to
     show the rest of the transitions.
     Cross posted at fanfiction.net
                                        
prologue
Sasuke Uchiha wakes up one night to a long forgotten memory seared into the
back of his eyelids, never to be forgotten again, and he cries great heaving
sobs for the first time in his life because it’s just too much and he can’t get
ahold of himself.
He suddenly knows that long ago he had a brother, a brother he held very dear,
but that now doesn’t exist. While those sobs rack his body he thinks I’m glad
he’s not in my life, but at the same time he can’t help but wonder where that
man is.
Gripping his head with fingers that hold tight he tries to forget, tries to
force out of his head these images that pervade his mind from his dreams. He
doesn’t want to remember these horrible things, and yet they just keep pouring
in again and again. Somewhere deep inside, he wonders how he’d ever forgotten,
and wishes he could bring out of himself that same mental block that had once
held these memories at bay.
Because there’s dark eyes and darker hair, and all this skin and blood and-
He falls into a fitful sleep, and in the morning, he almost doesn’t remember,
but from then on, the memories creep back in and he lives in a haze.
i.
“Sasuke-kun,” he whispers.
“Onii-chan…”
“Sasuke-kun,” he murmurs.
“Onii-chan…”
“Sa-Sasuke-kun!” he groans.
“Onii-chan!"
He wakes in a cold sweat again, his shirt soaked through. This time he isn’t
crying.
Part of him doesn’t want to believe the things that he had just seen, but the
other part knows they weren’t just a dream. They were real, and they echoed
with the sounds of something he’d experienced before, something he wishes he
hadn’t.
He remembers then, his brother’s face. Dark and uncaring, it hovered above his
own. Dark eyes pierced him and locked him in place.
He sits up and he’s shaking, remembering the tremors that had gone through his
own body in that terrible dream, and suddenly he see’s a dark stain.
He reaches for it with trembling fingers. It’s sticky, and he realizes he knows
what it is.
He curls his fingers into his palms so tight it pierces skin, and silent tears
trickle down his face.
The blood that slides down his wrist brings relief, and that’s how it begins.
--
“I’ll give you a ryo if you come with me Sasuke-kun,” he cajoles.
“A whole ryo?”
“Of course. You just have to come with me.”
…
“Put it in your mouth. It’s okay, just think of it like a lolly.”
“Onii-chan…”
“Please Sasuke-kun? For me?”
This time he’s in class, and he bites down on his tongue hard because why here
why here why here?
His mouth fills with blood and he swallows reflexively, but the tastes make him
gag. He gets up and grabs the hall pass in the middle of his teachers lecture,
and without slowing, makes his way to the bathroom.
He doesn’t realize he’s been followed until the door opens behind him and the
sink is filled with blood.
“Sasuke? Sasuke what the hell happened?”
Warm tan arms grip his shoulders and force him to turn around.
“Tch,” he responds and turns his head.
“What the fuck did you do to yourself Sasuke?” the blonde before him asks.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit it was nothing. Your mouth is full of blood. I can see it all over
your fucking teeth, and if that weren’t evidence enough, there’s blood in the
sink!”
“I bit my tongue. No big deal, dobe.”
“Sasuke, what’s going on with you. You’ve been acting weird lately.”
“It’s nothing.”
--
His skin crawls.
This time, it isn’t a memory so much as it is a feeling. He remembers hands on
him, caressing his skin and petting him and licking him for fucks sake.He wants
to be sick, and he almost is except there’s this other feeling accompanying the
disgust and its want.
He feels his cock filling with blood, and he punches his balls so hard he
really is sick. What comes up is bile and it burns itself all the way out of
him. He heaves and he heaves and he heaves but the feelings refuse to go away,
and that’s when he becomes desperate.
He wants to cut away the very skin that man had touched, and he throws open the
drawers in the bathroom cupboards until he comes up with that tiny little thing
his mom uses to clean under her nails.
He rips and he hacks at the flesh on his arms until he’s sitting in a puddle of
blood, and he finally feels relief. His whole body is numb.
He cleans up the bathroom extra carefully, cleans and bandages his arms in a
kind of haze. He throws out the nail cleaner and no one’s the wiser.
--
He takes a shower that night and scrubs at his skin so hard his flesh starts to
burn, but he doesn’t care. He only scrubs harder, and harder, and harder, until
his thighs start to bleed. He even scrubs his balls and his penis, and they
hurt so bad afterwards that he can’t even find it in himself to sit.
He still doesn’t feel clean.
--
“Sasuke-kun, will you go on a date with me?”
“No billboard-brow, he’s going on a date with me!”
“Shut up Ino-pig. Why would he ever date you?”
“Sasuke-kun, you’ll go on a date with me, right?
“Sasuke-kun!”
“Sasuke-kun!”
“Sasuke-kun!”
“Sasuke-kun…”
He lashes out and there’s blood everywhere. He’s punched one of them in the
face and they’re both staring at him, aghast.
“You’re a bully!” one of them yells, as she puts her arm around the other one
and guides her to the bathroom.
He’s still seeing red, and his skin is prickling in that way. Tremors race
through his body, and his cock begins to stir.
He cringes, turns and lashes out again, punching a random locker as hard as he
can. Blood drips down his fist.
“Sasuke?”
“What!?” he snarls, spinning around ready to launch another attack.
“Sasuke, what the fuck is going on with you?”
“Just leave me alone, Naruto!” he shouts and storms off.
Inside his head, all he can see is his brother rocking against him and he wants
to scream. Blood trails behind him from his bloodied fist, but it’s not enough.
He grips his arm and squeezes until he feels a warm trickle. He’s ripped open
an old cut, and it feels so good to feel nothing.
--
“Onii-chan, Onii-chan,Onii-chan!!!” he moans, and his brother smirks.
“Onii-chan, I love you…”
“I love you too, Sasuke-kun,” he purrs with a lecherous look on his face,and
that’s when the door slams in his face.
He’s sitting there at his desk and he knows that something terrible happened
next, but he can’t remember.
He can’t remember and it makes him pissed.
How can he be remembering ever other horrible grievance his brother committed
to him but he can’t remember this one? How can he still feel those hands on his
skin and not remember what his brother did to him in that room?
“If you really love me you’ll-“
He squirms and he thrusts down his pants. His cock is singing and he wants it
to stop, he wants it to stop right now.
He grabs the scissors out of his backpack and plunges them at his thigh.
Something stills his hand just enough. He doesn’t stab himself through, but he
does use the edge of one of the blades to slice through his thigh, and he leans
his head back with a deep sigh.
He wishes that he could feel numb like this every day.
--
“Sasuke, let’s hang out today.”
“No.”
“Why the fuck not?”
He doesn’t reply.
“We used to hang out all the time, what the fuck’s happened to you?”
“Tch.”
“I used to believe I was your best friend, but now…now you’ve created this
giant wall between us and I don’t know how to get around it.”
“Then maybe you should stop trying,” he hears himself respond, but he doesn’t
really mean it. He feels hollow inside and he doesn’t like it. It’s not like
when he’s numb. This is almost worse than feeling his body react to the
memories of someone –
“…I miss you Sasuke,” his best friend says, and then he’s gone.
“Naruto…’
--
“Itachi, wha- what is going on in here?”
“Itachi how could you!”
“Onii-chan, Onii-chan!”
“Mommy I love him, I love him! Where are you taking Onii-chan? Where are you
taking him!?”
“Itachi what have you done…”
“You can’t stay here any longer…I’m sorry but you can’t.”
He throws his head back and breathes deep. Peels back his t-shirt and grabs the
scissors he used to rip open his thigh the other night. Slow and steady, he
makes a thin line across his belly. Drags the point up his abdomen, alighting
tiny shivers up his spine. He makes random lines until he’s numb once again.
“Itachi…” he says real quietly, and feels his face screw up in a frown.
“I fucking hate you…”
--
“Mother,” he says one night, slipping slowly into a chair in front of the
kitchen counter. She looks up from cutting her vegetables for dinner and smiles
at him.
“Yes, honey?”
“Where’s Itachi.”
There is no response, only the slowing down of the steady chopping until
finally she puts the knife down.
“Itachi?” she asks with a small frown, refusing to look up at his face.
“My brother.”
“He had to go away,” she says, turning away slowly. He stares at her back.
“Why?” he asks, even though he already knows the answer.
“Are you finally remembering then, Sasuke?” she asks instead.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
ii.
“Mikoto, no.”
“Why not? He’s remembering, Fugaku. We can’t just leave him like this.”
“He’s a strong boy, he’ll be fine.
“And what happens if he’s not as strong as you think he is, huh? We have to get
him in to see a counselor. He needs to talk to someone.”
“I said no. I won’t have anyone knowing our business. Itachi is gone, and
Sasuke is strong enough to deal with this on his own.”
--
Sasuke’s memories are growing clearer. He has this feeling, all over his skin
sometimes, like he’s just not safe, and he curls in on himself. He knows he’s
even more prickly than normal. Even the girls give him a wide berth.
Even Naruto avoids him now. He sends him looks in class. Sasuke can feel them
burning into the side of his head, but he never looks back. He’s afraid to look
back.
The only thing that calms him down is to make himself bleed, by whatever means
necessary. Sometimes, he stares at the counselor’s office door. A few times,
the counselor, Iruka Umino catches him looking, but every time Mr. Umino smiles
at him, he walks away.
He wears long sleeves to cover the wreck he’s made of his arms. He bandages
them every night, from the elbow down so that no one will notice random bulges.
His skin is beginning to look more and more wrecked, but he doesn’t care. He
craves the feeling of numbness. He doesn’t know how to live anymore with the
memory of his brother’s touch, his perverted love echoing in his head.
He continues to get erections, and he hates himself every time it happens.
He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him, but Sasuke blames every mark on his skin
on his brother.
--
“Sasuke I will not stand for this,” Fugaku announces one night at the dinner
table.
He doesn’t respond.
“You’re teachers have been calling here, and that – that…counselor of yours,
Mr. Umino? They want to know what’s wrong with you. You better watch yourself
son. I will not have anyone looking down their noses at us.”
“Fugaku!” his mother yells in surprise.
“I mean it Sasuke. Get your act together.”
Sasuke leaves the dinner table without touching his plate. He hears his mother
fighting with his father, but he knows it doesn’t matter what she says.
His father is right.
--
“Sasuke-kun, oh-oh-oh Sasuke-kun!”
The blade is in his hand before he’s even fully awake, and he’s running over
the very edge of his thigh, hissing because even against his skin he can feel
the stickiness of his cum, and he’s disgusted with himself.
He used to come for his fucking brother, and now he’s doing it again when the
man isn’t even here.
He wants to scream, but he doesn’t. He grits his teeth and carves into his skin
because it’s the only release he can give himself.
His sheets are covered in blood. It’s 4 am but it doesn’t matter. Sasuke gets
up to do the laundry, because his parent’s wont notice and he knows he wont be
able to sleep again.
--
The feeling like his skin is crawling with the touch of his brother starts to
get so bad, even the feeling of his clothing, his sheets starts to become so
unbearable he’s cutting himself three, four times a day.
He can’t stop. It’s too much. He wants to die he feels so disgusted with
himself. There’s all these memories swirling around in his head of him doing
things with his brother. His own brother for fuck’ssakes.
Sasuke craves into his skin because there’s nothing else he can do, but he
hates himself every minute of every day
He enjoyed his brother’s every touch. He’d come for Itachi.
He starts to believe he deserves to bleed.
--
“Naruto,” Sasuke says one afternoon, standing behind his best friend.
“Sasuke,” Naruto says back, turning with a raised brow. “Are you finally
talking to me again?”
Sasuke grits his teeth and walks away. Naruto doesn’t come after him.
--
Sasuke cuts himself in the bathroom. He’d gone to his best friend for help, and
he’d walked away because of his pride. He deserved every mark on his skin. He
deserved to be a disgrace.
--
“Onii-chan, let me touch it…” he pleads.
“Nah-ah-ah Sasuke. We follow my rules, remember? Bend over.”
“Onii-chan, Onii-chan!”
“One day, I will kill you Itachi!” he shouts when he wakes up, and he hears
someone coming down the stairs.
His mother opens the door slowly and comes in, but he only lies down and turns
his back on her. She sighs and sits on the edge of his bed anyway, petting his
back. For once, he’s able to fall asleep again and wakes up without nightmares
and without any new blood on his hands.
--
“Come over today,” he says, and Naruto nods without a word.
They walk home together in silence, and Sasuke’s heart is racing. He need’s
help, he knows he does, but he’s afraid of what Naruto will say. Of what he
will do. If his own best friend finds him disgusting after he tells him, he
doesn’t know what he’ll do.
When they get to his house, it’s empty. His parents are working.
Sasuke wastes no time in stripping off his shirt.
“Sasuke, what are you doing?” Naruto asks in total surprise.
Then he gasps. Sasuke strips off his jeans, and then starts unwinding his
bandages. Naruto only stares.
When Sasuke finally looks at him, there’s terror in his eyes and he’s shaking
his head in denial.
“I can’t deal with this,” Naruto says, and then he’s gone.
Sasuke sits down and tries to cry, but he can’t.
--
“Sasuke I’m sorry,” Naruto says the next day. Sasuke doesn’t answer.
“Please.”
This time, Sasuke walks away.
--
Every chance that Naruto gets for the next few weeks, he tries to apologize to
Sasuke, tries to get him to listen, but Sasuke won’t.
Sasuke is hurt.
Cuts crisscross up and down every part of his body that he can hide, but he
starts leaving his arms alone. He thinks if the scars fade fast enough and he
stops wearing bandages and long sleeves, maybe Naruto will think he’s normal
again. Maybe they can be friends again.
He doesn’t think he deserves that.
His skin itches and prickles. His problems continue. Lately, he’s taken to
throwing up. He can’t handle the feeling of his brother’s touch on him anymore,
can’t stand the memories that slam into him every chance they get. He can’t
stand the nightmares anymore, and that face, that face that he’s staring to see
everywhere –
Sasuke wants to die.
--
“Damnit Teme, I just want to help you!”  Naruto yells one afternoon when he is
finally able to slam Sasuke into his locker.
Sasuke’s eyes are wide, and his heart is pounding, and Naruto’s got his hands
fisted in his shirt. Sasuke can’t move.
“I’m sorry I ran away before, okay? It was just…so much to look at…Sasuke, what
are you doing to yourself? What’s wrong? How long has this been going on for?”
and the look on Naruto’s face is so heartbreaking that Sasuke just bows his
head and lets his bangs hide his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Sasuke says quietly, and it’s the first time he’s ever apologized.
“Oh Sasuke,” Naruto says, and he pulls him to close to hug him. “We’ll get
through this together.”
iii.
Sasuke tells Naruto everything. He tells him about what happened when he was
younger, about the nightmares and the memories and the way his skin feels
sometimes, all the time.
Naruto just listens and holds his hand. It feels good to Sasuke to have the
warmth of someone else to hold onto, but he still freezes up sometimes, still
yanks his hand back as if he’s been scalded.
A few times he even lashes out.
“Fuckyou, Naruto!”
“You could never understand!”
“I hateyou!”
And a few times, he almost even cries.
“I deserve to die.”
“It’s my fault, what happened to me.”
“I enjoyed it.”
Naruto just listens and tries to comfort him as best as he can.
--
“You need to see a counselor,” Naruto tells him.
Sasuke shakes his head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“My father would kill me.”
“Fuck your father, Sasuke. Fuck him.”
Sasuke just continues to shake his head. He doesn’t want to go see a counselor.
He doesn’t want to see the pitying look on Mr. Umino’s face. He doesn’t want
the whole school around him to have proof that something’s wrong with him.
He doesn’t want to be told that it’s not his fault, because it is.
“We’ll get through this Sasuke. We’ll get through this together.”
Sasuke wants to believe him, but he doesn’t know if he can.
--
Naruto makes Sasuke to promise to stop cutting himself, but Sasuke tells him he
doesn’t think he can. They make a deal. When Sasuke feels the need to cut
himself, he comes to Naruto and they find a way to deal with it. If Sasuke
can’t get to Naruto, then it’s up to him. If he cut’s himself, he cut’s
himself, and they’ll deal with it in time.
Naruto starts spending a lot of time around Sasuke, and a few times, goes home
with a black eye or a bloody nose. He says he doesn’t mind.
They start running. Naruto says it will help, but Sasuke doesn’t believe him.
In fact, he’s so out of shape, it only pisses him off more.
Naruto jog’s in place besides him while Sasuke gasps and growls on the floor.
Sometimes, Sasuke catches a grin on his face and it only makes him angrier.
After a while, he starts to notice the feeling of his skin crawling starting to
fade.
--
“I think, maybe, you need to meet with Itachi,” Naruto says one evening, and
Sasuke lashes out so badly he has to ask his parents to drive Naruto to the
hospital with a fractured wrist.
He sits with Naruto at his house until he’s forced to leave without saying a
word. Naruto does all the talking, telling Sasuke it wasn’t his fault, but
Sasuke knows…Sasuke knows all of it is his fault.
He walks home and when he gets there, he carves into his thighs some more.
--
He asks his mom where Itachi is.
“Sasuke, I’m not allowed to tell you.”
“Because father says so?” he asks. His mother grimaces.
“I don’t care. Tell me.”
So she does.
--
Sasuke doesn’t tell Naruto that he’s going. When he gets dropped off for school
one day, he ditches and catches a bus instead. They drive for 4 hours before he
finally gets off, and he walks into the neighborhood he thinks the house is in.
He gets lost, and starts wondering around. A large hand drops onto his shoulder
from behind and he jumps, turning around.
He comes face to face with the face that haunts his dreams, and before he can
stop himself, he slams his fist into Itachi’s cheekbone.
His breathing is labored and angry, and all he see’s is red.
“It’s nice to see you too, little brother.”
“I HATE YOU,” he shouts, and when his brother only nods and smiles with a tiny
twitch to his lips, Sasuke slugs him again.
“Still feisty, I see.”
Sasuke realizes this was a mistake at the same time that he snaps. He’s on his
brother so fast neither one of them expected it, and the next time he’s aware
of his surroundings he’s at a police station and his parents are rushing in.
Fugaku is furious.
--
“I told you Sasuke could neverknow where his brother was!” his father roars.
“I couldn’t keep it from him, Fugaku. Sasuke is suffering, and you’re too
stubborn to see it.”
“I will not have Sasuke sullying our name!”
“Have you seen his arms, Fugaku? Do you have any idea what he’s doing to
himself?”
“I don’t care if he slits his own wrists, so long as he keeps it a secret!”
Someone slams a door downstairs, and he’s willing to bet it was his mother.
--
The next day at school, everyone’s heard about what happened the other day.
Even four hours away, the news has managed to spread, and everyone knows what
the youngest Uchiha has been getting up too.
“I didn’t even know Sasuke had a brother,” many people say, and Sasuke wishes
they would shut up.
On his thigh, he has a few new cuts. He presses into them to feel the sweet
feeling of relief, and goes numb.
Naruto finds him at lunch with a blade in his hands, pressing into his side
behind the school. He doesn’t say anything, just takes the blade from him and
cleans the blood from his skin.
Sasuke feels dazed.
Naruto kisses him.
iv.
Sasuke blocks Naruto out of his life for a few weeks. Naruto stares at him from
far away with a wounded look on his face, but doesn’t try and approach him.
He gets worse again. He cuts himself every chance he gets, but suddenly, he
can’t find that feeling of numbness anywhere inside of him. The cutting isn’t
helping anymore.
He cuts himself anyway. It hurts more now, and he cries. He feels like
something is seriously wrong with him, and he finds himself increasingly
disgusted with himself.
His parents are fighting and he misses his best friend.
He doesn’t know what he’s running from. He liked the feeling of Naruto’s lips
against his.
He thinks he doesn’t deserve a happy ending.
--
That night he slits his wrists and calls Naruto, gasping into the phone. As he
lays there dying, listening to the sound of the ambulance fighting to get to
him from who knows how far away, he finds himself thinking everything is
finally going to be over. Everything is finally going to be okay.
But at the same time, he doesn’t believe it’s because he’s going to die here.
In fact, Sasuke’s fairly certain he’s going to be saved.
Naruto arrives before the ambulance, and presses cloth to his wrists to stop
the bleeding.
He screams for help, but Sasuke’s parents are at a gala. That's why he’d picked
tonight.
Naruto rides with him in the ambulance. Sasuke survives the night.
--
His suicide attempt is all over the news, and pictures of his mutilated skin
are everywhere. Sasuke knows his father must be pissed, but Mikoto tells them
everything. She sits by Sasuke’s bed side with tears streaming down her face
and tells Sasuke that everything is going to be okay now, that’ll she take care
of him.
Sasuke believes her.
--
He’s in counseling. He stays in the hospital for a few weeks for monitoring,
and is on strict suicide watch, but he doesn’t mind. The counselors are helping
him, and Naruto gets to see him often.
He doesn’t try and kiss Sasuke again, but Sasuke doesn’t mind. He holds
Naruto’s hand often, and he almost never feels like his skin is crawling with
Itachi’s touch anymore. He’s starting to feel happier.
--
The first time Sasuke kisses Naruto, it’s in his bedroom back home when he’s
finally allowed to return. Naruto is hesitant, and doesn’t let Sasuke lick into
his mouth, but Sasuke doesn’t mind. He wants to take it slow.
Naruto says “I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long, Sasuke.”
Sasuke only nods his head.
“That first day you took off your shirt for me, I thought you were going to
proposition me. But then I saw all the scars, and it scared me. I’m in love
with you Sasuke. Can you imagine what it felt like to see you like that? I
couldn’t handle it. I’m sorry.”
“I understand,” Sasuke says, and he means it. He kisses Naruto again before he
can say anything else, and he clasps his hand tightly in his own.
The idea of anyone loving him scares him, and he doesn’t know if he believes
it, doesn’t think he’ll ever deserve it, but it doesn’t matter. Naruto makes
him feel warm and safe and cared for, and that’s all that does matter.
--
He still feels the desire to cut himself, but he has his councilor’s, his
mother, and Naruto on his side now.
They run together, Naruto laughing at him along the way.
Sasuke still gets angry, and most of the time pushes himself too far, but the
running is helping. He doesn’t have that crushing need to press something sharp
into his skin anymore afterwards.
His councilor explains it to him saying that that anger and hurt that drives
him to cut himself is being fueled into his running instead, and instead of
forcing those feelings away, he’s dealing with them through exercise. He
accepts that answer.
Naruto says something about endorphins, and how they make you happy when
released through exercise.
That doesn’t make sense.
He cocks an eyebrow at Naruto and says “Usuratonkachi.”
--
Sasuke looks up the word “endorphins” and decides maybe Naruto is smarter than
he looks.
epilogue
By the time Sasuke gets better, a year or so later, he’s able to say “I love
you,” to Naruto.
“Sasuke,” Naruto says back in awe.
“Dobe,” he says.
Naruto grins. “I love you too, Sasuke.”
Sasuke believes him, and for the first time, feels worthy of it.
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